Abstract
There has been steady progress in the handling and treatment of debris from the Great East Japan Earthquake. Local municipalities have mainly been in charge of this progress, and with continued cooperation from non-affected areas and the national government treatment the disposal is now in its final stages. On one hand, treatment of the waste in areas that have been evacuated has been accelerated so that people can begin to return back to their homes. However, because the types of disaster debris left over by the Great East Japan Earthquake are varied and intermixed, the severity and extensiveness of the damage and clean-up needs exceeds what has been seen in previous disasters. Guidelines for Disaster Waste Management have been revised to include the following four points :
① Prevention is described as being crucial to the prevention stage, emergency response stage and recovery and reconstruction stage.
② Coastal municipalities and supporting municipalities will be responsible for the practical develop of their own disaster waste treatment plan.
③ Promotion of the pre-development of cooperation and mutual interaction systems among prefectures, municipalities, and related organizations.
④ Promotion of separation and recycling.
In addition, the Ministry of the Environment is promoting the establishment of a Resilient Waste Management System that incorporates substitutability and redundancy in the case of any future disasters. This will allow for rapid handling of a situation if any other massive earthquake disasters, such as the Nankai Trough Quake or Tokyo Inland Earthquakes, ever occur.
